Taipei City’s Environmental Protection Department will cut three garbage collection routes in Zhongzheng (中正) and Xinyi (信義) districts starting today and plans to make more changes in the future as the amount of garbage collected has dropped 23 percent since 2003.
The number of garbage collection routes in Zhongzheng will be reduced from 15 to 13, while the routes in Xinyi will be cut from 22 to 21, the department said.
Chang Sheng-jie (張勝傑), a division chief of the department, said the department had a policy to merge trash routes as less trash was being generated in the capital.
“The amount of garbage our trash trucks collect is about 77 percent of what we collected in 2003 and some of the routes are too close. It’s time to rearrange those routes,” Chang said.
There were 195 garbage collection routes before the cut and 4,105 collection spots around the city. Chang said the department had not set any goals for the number of future route cuts, but that it would make similar changes in all the districts by the end of the year.
The garbage collection service began in 1995, when the Taipei City Government initiated its “keep trash off the ground” policy, followed by the “fee per package” policy initiated in 2000.
Democratic Progressive Party Taipei City Councilor Lee Wen-ying (李文英), however, said she had received a lot of complaints from residents who said that cutting the routes would be inconvenient. The department should consult with borough chiefs and residents before making such changes, Lee said.
Chang said trash collection might be rescheduled for about 10 minutes later in areas where the routes are merged and that the department had informed residents living along the routes.
The department will discuss the changes with local borough chiefs, he said.
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